So I was reading through the Ariel carrier thread and the most recent post was about the ~950 feet Enterprise in a diagram seen on the show.

I tracked it down to "The Enterprise Incident", measured it out and well, there you go, a ~950' Enterprise!

However, there are some interesting parts that don't match up to the filmed model(s) which I might use as reasoning that this ~950' model represents the original design/version of the Enterprise before Pike took command. This version would be the what the Enterprise looked like when it first was constructed. Then the version we see filmed in the series happens to be a slight redesign and refit, perhaps larger than the previous version. And the version we see in TMP is another larger redesigned and refit version.

Sounds a little crazy, I know

(Or out-of-universe explanation: I'm using the Matt Jefferies graphic that made it into the episode as the reference to a "pre-Pike" ship that was ~950' and because of the differences with it and the filmed model there is some wiggle room to consider the filmed model to be a redesign like the TMP version and thus I could make the filmed model larger and still be Thermian about it We have some precedent in the movies where internal graphics on the refit-E still show the older TOS graphics so why couldn't the TOS version show pre-TOS graphics? )

I definitely think many of the details in these diagrams reflect the original concept MJ preferred, such as a bevel around the lower edge of the saucer, the more curvaceous underbelly of the secondary hull, the "reversed" windows on the pylons etc. etc.

But then there are many details that reflect changes made to the model after they were built, such as the smaller bridge dome and deflector dish, mods. to the nacelle end caps etc. etc. So it's a mixed bag when it comes to these diagrams. At best they can only point us in the direction of what an original build “E” might have looked like?

Plus, I don't think they help much as far as rationalizing the (in universe) scale overall, since the changes are pretty small compared with the later TMP refit. You'd be better off just ignoring the scale in these diagrams and using whatever scale you think works best?

Good points. The only reason I'm thinking of this is before I had thought 947' was just an after the series thing, something that wasn't available from the series itself. But this gives me pause to think well, 947' apparently is there... but just not with the ship we see in the series to give me some room to resize the ship if necessary

Matt Jefferies definitely created a sketch that had that scale on it. And I'm sure that his originally-intended number was ~950'.

However, remember that he was working for a 1960s TV show, on a tight schedule and budget, and was creating a ton of content on a daily basis. The fact that we got as much detail and accuracy as we did is impressive, no question.

But to claim that his work, on paper, is "inviolable" is sort of silly. He, himself, never felt that way about his own work (as indicated by his frequent revisiting of concepts, not to mention his sketches for updating the E later on).

Nobody can speak for M.J. but I feel confident that his main concern was coming up with a ship that looked good and which worked. I sincerely doubt that the man would have insisted that 947' (a figure derived by review of a diagram never intended for close scrutiny, and expected to be seen only on 1960s TV sets) was more important than, say, making the sets seen on-screen match up with the physical exteriors seen on-screen (even though, as we know, there are myriad instances where this simply can't be done anyway, due to production shortcuts... the TMP rec deck, anyone?)

Given infinite time and resources, I have no doubt that M.J. would have continued to evolve his design. Would he have come up with any of our specific solutions? Maybe in a few cases, but most likely he'd have come up with something which differs, at least in some measure, from anything any of us have envisioned as of yet. That's how creativity works, after all!

947' is NOT a "firm stake in the sand." It's just a number that was tossed out as a "good enough" estimate for the purposes of a TV show, and which was never mentioned on-screen or seen on-screen.

NO, THE DIAGRAM ABOVE WAS NEVER SEEN ON-SCREEN CLEARLY ENOUGH TO DERIVE A FIRM LENGTH. And it was never intended to be seen in the detail we now do get to see it, anyway. It falls into the same general category as the "insurance remaining" indicator on the TNG medical diagnostic reader display, or the little "nomads" and "ducks" and so forth seen in TNG-era diagrams, and so forth.

I have no problem at all with people being dedicated to keeping the 947' length for their own purposes. My only problem comes up when someone insists that things we ACTUALLY SAW, ON-SCREEN, must be rejected in favor of a number which was never established to the audience.

What is canon, is what was seen on-screen... well, except when it isn't. We don't HAVE to accept that the Enterprise had nacelle domes one second, and didn't have them the next second. We don't have to accept that the ship's gymnasium is EXACTLY like the ship's engine room. We don't have to accept that the ship's landing bay has a bare, featureless wall. We don't have to accept that the Galileo is a TARDIS.

There's nothing wrong with the "what would the thermians do?" approach... and it's actually quite fun to watch. As long as nobody starts claiming that this is the "right" solution, and every other solution is wrong.

That, unfortunately, is what some people have done with the 947' number. It's silly, really... especially when it means that the sets won't fit without major revision. Rejecting sets (which saw more screen time than the ship exterior ever did, much less a diagram seen once, and then only in a very blurry fashion) seems... well, like misplaced priorities, that's all.

The Thermians would likely end up assuming that a "foot" is larger than 12" and then figure out how everything works. (After all, the term "foot" as a unit of length was never established on-screen!) Or they might have concluded that the entire crew was under 4'6". Either way... that's the only real way to reconcile the sets and the ship's exterior without significant compromise to either.

@Cary L Brown - I'm going to have to disagree with you about not being able to see the diagram clearly enough on screen as the top view gets a decent close-up in "The Enterprise Incident".

947' was the working size I had picked because that was as good as a place to start and I knew I might need to scale up from there. But up until "The Enterprise Incident", I had not considered it to be a number that can be derived.

I am attaching 947' size to only the "diagram version aka pre-Pike version". I'm still going to end up scaling the Series ship up to fit the flight deck and not because of interior set issues (which I have yet to find except for the flight deck).

Funny enough that you mention how would a Thermian know what the measurement for a foot would be... simple, use Miss Lincoln from "Assignment Earth" as the reference

I rather like that chamfered saucer edge. The bulge at the bottom of the secondary is also seen in FJs Constitution class blueprints but is actually a bit more abrupt. This was what I was refering to as the (pre-refit) teardrop shape. But in the drawing above, and in the tech manual, the secondary hull actually looks longer than it does in the FJ blueprints. The AMT model Shaw does work on isn't quite FJs The Franklin Mints are based on FJ, and the Zocci SFB plastic ship miniatures look based on the long secondary hull variant above.

BTW, an accurate Quindar/ Mike Minor Phase II can be done with the mesh of the FJ ship.

If I could make a request. Could you overlay the FJ blueprint atop the Jefferies long secondary hull drawing above?

@publiusr - No problem. Red is from FJ's blueprint and Black is from MJ's (sorry - there is a slight distortion on the MJ version). Scaled both ships to be the same length. MJ's appears to be just a hair longer than FJ's. A good 3D version of FJ's ship was done up recently by havoc92.

That's surprising how well that fits after all. I see now--the Jefferies version secondary hull isn't longer after all, but thinner. You might remember the--what was it--McMaster drawing of Trek ships with the Fesaurius--he kept a production saucer but placed it atop a secondary hull with the bulge. I wonder how that might overlay the above.

@Cary L Brown - I'm going to have to disagree with you about not being able to see the diagram clearly enough on screen as the top view gets a decent close-up in "The Enterprise Incident".

947' was the working size I had picked because that was as good as a place to start and I knew I might need to scale up from there. But up until "The Enterprise Incident", I had not considered it to be a number that can be derived.

I am attaching 947' size to only the "diagram version aka pre-Pike version". I'm still going to end up scaling the Series ship up to fit the flight deck and not because of interior set issues (which I have yet to find except for the flight deck).

Funny enough that you mention how would a Thermian know what the measurement for a foot would be... simple, use Miss Lincoln from "Assignment Earth" as the reference

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You can see the diagram, TODAY, on a HD screen, on BluRay.

But in 1966, on the best possible color TV set, there was no way you'd have ever seen anything from which you could derive anything CLOSE to the sizing.

I know, we're looking at it as though this is all gospel, but again, remember, the sick bay monitors in TNG had one of the indicators which showed "insurance remaining." This was never intended to be seen, but it was there.

The images seen in TEI were, as far as I'm concerned, along those same lines. Intended to be recognizable as views of the Enterprise and the D-7A design, and to show rough proportion between the two. But the ships shown in the diagram aren't the ships seen on-screen, just "rough approximations," and the scale is NOT clear enough that, without leaping through hoops that no one on the original production crew could have ever imagined you'd be leaping through, you could ever arrive at any reasonably approximation of the size of the ship.

On a late-1960s TV set, you could only see the basic shapes, and see that there was something which was probably a scale bar, in that diagram.

I know, we're looking at it as though this is all gospel, but again, remember, the sick bay monitors in TNG had one of the indicators which showed "insurance remaining." This was never intended to be seen, but it was there.

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And that's one of the reasons why I'm not working on the TNG Enterprise

Very cool ... but I thought the intent was to have the linear intermix chamber line up with the impulse deflection crystal in front of the impulse engines. The darker gray line going up the dorsal was, I thought supposed to house that chamber.

Of course, when you do that, there's a slight problem with that corridor out in front of engineering ....

@Psion - I addressed it by scaling up the ship Actually, the cargo bay doesn't fit in 305m either, so it worked out by scaling up.

Remember the path this project is taking is not always going to align with the designer's intent since I'm striving for screen accuracy and we know that the production folks don't always adhere to the designer's wishes...

However, 947' was MJ's intention. Discarding that figure primarily because the hangar deck doesn't seem to fit ignores a more important and better documented full size set that does fit the 947' size: The bridge. At the intended scale, and only at the intended scale, does the turbolift fit into the visible tube at the back of the bridge dome. It seems misplaced to reject the 947' feature because the miniature hangar set (which we're not really sure of the dimensions and configuration of) doesn't fit, while throwing out the obvious and well documented bridge scale cue. At the very least, hanging on to the intended length is not "silly."

Once again, I'm not saying one cannot have a bigger E if one wants it. I'm merely pointing out that staying with MJ's size is not silly or indefensible.

@Mgagen - I agree on the 947' but not because of the bridge. There is nothing that ties the bridge to an external feature for scaling purposes. The flight deck you can with the shuttle doors. As far as I can tell, the only set that doesn't fit is the flight deck.

Forgive my ignorance, but who are these mysterious "Thermians" you have mentioned on more than one occasion? Sounds like a corny sci-fi species noted for extreme body heat.

Sincerely,

Bill

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As blssdwlf points out, the Thermians are from the movie Galaxy Quest. They had the endearing trait of having no concept of lying. They also didn't understand make-believe, so when they began receiving television signals from Earth, they assumed everything they watched was true. "Gilligan's Island? Those poor people."

When they found their civilization threatened by the evil warlord Sarris, the Thermians turned to an Earth documentary called Galaxy Quest, which depicted humans exploring the galaxy in a massive starship ala Star Trek. Meticulously analyzing the characteristics of the starship Protector, the Thermians reverse-engineered everything in the ship and built a functional duplicate.

The only thing they lacked was a qualified crew to operate it.

So they abducted the show's original actors from a science fiction convention and put them in charge of a real-life, full-sized starship and sent them off to defeat Sarris.

The movie was a parody of Star Trek ... or more correctly, its fandom, and while great fun was made of fans, it was done almost as a tribute, and managed to balance the needs of adventure, parody, and science fiction so well that many Trek fans consider it one of the best Star Trek movies ever produced.